I should sleep, but here I am.

[Ross Scott]

Hey everyone, this is another one of my I've-been-awake-for-36-hours-and-feel-the-urge-to-communicate posts. The REASON I've been awake so long is I just barely managed to hit the extended deadline for the mystery video I've been working on for weeks. This deadline was a for a film festival Machinima.com is going to be participating in a few days that will last about a week. You can expect the video to go up in a few days, I'll make a new post about it when I'm more lucid.

 

For now I guess I'll just rant about Source Filmmaker. My initial impressions of it acting like an inverse relationship to Source SDK are entirely correct. They are both great at some things, and horrible at other things. So horrible. Just saying the software sucks doesn't really do it justice, because it does have some nice features, but to take that and assume that as a WHOLE it's great is incorrect. I get kind of annoyed by this kind of reasoning as I think some people make one TF2 video of some guy jumping around (or better yet, have never animated anything in their life), then assume Source Filmmaker is the answer to everyone's problems and will usher forth a new Renaissance for all. I kind of feel like eventually someone will make the end-all standard for making good machinima with the least amount of pain, but it's not there yet. I've been waiting for it ever since I started working on this. I do plan on jumping ship to UDK, but I'm going to have help with getting models ported over and having NPCs created. UDK gives you basically nothing in terms of assets, whereas Source has a plethora of options there. If I was just starting off making machinima today, UDK wouldn't be a realistic option. Great potential, no assets. That's great for developers, but machinima is all about taking shortcuts so you can actually get stuff done. I don't want to animate, I want to manifest things in my brain, but that doesn't happen, so I animate and do a hell of a lot of other things too.

 

I really don't understand what the hell's Valve's attitude is with their tools. People complain about how long it takes their games to come out, but I'm guessing those people haven't worked in the Source engine. Hell I'm amazed they get as much done as they do. The crazy thing is I think Valve as a whole works like I do. They take a long time to do things and their energy gets divided up among several different projects. I want to do civil protection, I want to do freeman's mind, I want to do short fun videos, I want to do the movie, I want to do other series ideas, also have improvements to the site, finalize subtitles, respond to emails, etc. The thing is though, I'm just one guy who earns less than your schoolteacher. They're a mega corporation with no rules. If I had access to a fraction of the money valve has to work with, I feel like I could get 10x more done than I do now. Hell, anything to get animation out of my hands without sacrificing quality would do it. If I didn't have to animate anything, I would have 10x the videos I have now. So back to Valve, what are they doing with that money? Are they building an underground secret civilization? Rich people should be doing all this crazy Scrooge McDuck stuff with their money, not just letting it in sit in a pile when you already have more money than you would ever spend in your life several times over. I guess the idea goes against their touchy-feely "no management" employee ethos, but why not hire some people whose sole job is just to fix the source engine and make better tools. They have so much money it could operate at pure loss directly, but would help solidify their long term future on yet another front. If they DO have people like that, they're either bad at their job, understaffed, or too hamstrung by someone else. Source is a mess for the kind of resources they have backing it. Almost every major update I've seen to the engine since HL2 came out has been more about eye candy than making life less like hell for devs. I'm calling them out, I think if I had access to those kinds of resources I could have more games out that are just as fun AND better tools for people without making everyone hate their life, like at Electronic Arts. It would take management, but you can have managers that aren't assholes, that could be a company policy. I have ulterior motives though, I get frustrated with having to take care of hundreds of different elements in a video where the right tools could have saved me thousands of hours over the years, but the people I'm at their mercy for seem to operate like they're not sure what they're doing.

 

Anyway, I've lost weeks to Source Filmmaker and this video. I'd say it wasn't worth it, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out. It could use some improvement, but I'm not letting Source steal any more of my life force. I'm never using the Source engine again for anything major (Freeman's Mind doesn't count, that's just playing through). I could using it for some simple 30 second videos, but nothing I really cared about. That way lies only pain. Pain.

 

I know this will piss people off, but the month of Freeman was completely robbed by this side project that took way too long. I plan on doing it, but this video took so much out of me, I'm going to take a break for a few days before I start anything again, I still promise a FM spree at some point. To put it in perspective that all of you can understand, I haven't even had a chance to play Black Mesa yet, I have literally been that busy since when it came out. I did a lot of lip sync work on it back in 2007, but I ended up flaking out timewise and made more civil protection instead. I'm wondering if they kept my name in the credits or purged me from the project, probably with lots of others, I can respect their decision either way. So I'll be chilling out, but I'll try and catch up on emails. I'm going to sleep.

 

ADHD version: I haven't slept in a while.

 

EDIT:

It turns out public schoolteachers on average make about 56k a year, so I probably should have said "grocery bagger" instead.

[Floyd]

Thanks for the update, I don't think people appreciate how hard you work. Sleep well man!! You've earned it. I don't comment on your videos often enough but yours is the some of the most consistently high-quality and hilarious work I've seen, and that's big praise. I'll look forward to the new video!

[Wheatley]

You seriously need a break from the sound of it. Take some time off, Freeman's Mind can wait.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah I pretty much saw it coming. Source Film Maker would obviously not be an option for someone serious. What I've seen so far being made with it is just TF2 short films. Good TF2 short films but that's pretty much it. I haven't seen anything as good or impressive as your stuff tends to be yet. So the move to UDK is definitely a wise one, if you can get the models and NPC's ported over of course.

 

I was sad to hear that Freeman's Mind has been postponed but a good thing is worth waiting for and each episode of Freeman's Mind is worth it in my opinion. I'm looking forward to the mystery video.

[Pinkie Pie]

Yeah I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed the month of Freeman never happened though I'm glad you still plan on it sooner or later. Have fun (or sleep) on your break!

[J.C.]

ADHD version: I haven't slept in a while

 

ADHD version (supplementary): Source is Hell. There will be more FM eventually.

[K0Z]

As you sleep source will be in your dreams, waiting.

 

SO GO NOW, DREAM AS AZATHOTH DOES.

[BTGBullseye]

Just checked the credits on Black Mesa to see if Ross' name is there... It isn't.

[PoiSonSonic]

Agree about SFM. The sole idea of separate keyframing and other way of making animation made my head explode, like how am I supposed to combine those weird things.

 

Speaking of which. After I tried to port HL2Mod dystopia to Cinema4d, and succeeded. I'm thinking about combination of C4D and Motionbuilder. In fact I don't see any reason to go to UDK, for you. Except it makes video a "Machinima". There is a short of "putting assets together" (premade animation, models, level, rigged npc). Done in an hour or so.

 

p.s. Why don't answer you my emails ^_^?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02dJkug_RdQ

02dJkug_RdQ

Edited November 28, 2012 by Guest (see edit history)

[BTGBullseye]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02dJkug_RdQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02dJkug_RdQ

Put the part "02dJkug_RdQ" between the tags to post the video.

[sullygass95]

"I haven't played Black Mesa yet" Holy sh*t! Christ, I didn't know you were THAT busy. It's too bad that the month of Freeman is being postponed but better that than you just cancelling it all together. Have a good rest Mr. Scott you've earned it and I can't wait for the new mystery video!

[Frigges]

I think you should have a rest youre not really geting things done faster by staying awake:/ It only thing it will achive is you geting sick D:.

 

Anyways have a good day! and a good nights sleep:P

[Wheatley]

"I haven't played Black Mesa yet" Holy sh*t! Christ, I didn't know you were THAT busy. It's too bad that the month of Freeman is being postponed but better that than you just cancelling it all together. Have a good rest Mr. Scott you've earned it and I can't wait for the new mystery video!

 

I hadn't read this, must have missed it; bloody hell, I finished Black Mesa before heading off on a trip at the beginning of fall. He most definitely needs a week vacation or something.

[Philmnator]

Thank you, Ross. You rock. Now get some rest

[HLPrincess]

He hasn't even played Black Mesa yet! This is an argument for all people complaining on Freeman's Mind timing. If you are so busy you are not able to play this game, you deserve a week off! I wish I could tell this to all the FM Youtube viewers

[av3nger]

Yeah I pretty much saw it coming. Source Film Maker would obviously not be an option for someone serious. What I've seen so far being made with it is just TF2 short films. Good TF2 short films but that's pretty much it. I haven't seen anything as good or impressive as your stuff tends to be yet. So the move to UDK is definitely a wise one, if you can get the models and NPC's ported over of course.

 

I was sad to hear that Freeman's Mind has been postponed but a good thing is worth waiting for and each episode of Freeman's Mind is worth it in my opinion. I'm looking forward to the mystery video.

 

Using Source Filmmaker I've got Half-Life 2 videos up.

SFM HL2

[RocketDude]

Sorry to hear, Ross. Hopefully, Source 2 (since there have been some interesting rumors about it) will be better to mod for, but you're likely to completely move over to UDK and never look back.

 

Speaking of which, have you heard of Renegade X, the remake of that C&C FPS? You may want to get in touch with the dev team of that, because they've managed to scrap together in-game animations for their little tech demo-thing of the game, so it'd be great if whoever did the character animations for Black Dawn could give you some pointers going into UDK.

[Ross Scott]

Agree about SFM. The sole idea of separate keyframing and other way of making animation made my head explode, like how am I supposed to combine those weird things.

 

Speaking of which. After I tried to port HL2Mod dystopia to Cinema4d, and succeeded. I'm thinking about combination of C4D and Motionbuilder. In fact I don't see any reason to go to UDK, for you. Except it makes video a "Machinima". There is a short of "putting assets together" (premade animation, models, level, rigged npc). Done in an hour or so.

 

p.s. Why don't answer you my emails ^_^?

 

02dJkug_RdQ

 

Yeah SFM is a huge tradeoff of features, the single worst of which is having to bake all your animations into the same sequence per model. The overwhelming messages I get from using SFM are "do it right the first time" and "have all your assets done before you start working. If you don't do this, it can lead to a lot of misery.

 

I got one email from you that was just links to tutorial for motion builder, not even a body of the email. If you've sent others, I haven't gotten around to them yet.

 

As for cinema 4d, I'm not overly familiar with it, but stuff that comes to mind for UDK:

 

-NPC programming so that I can simply give instructions where the character to walk towards or be facing (like Hammer / face poser) and not have to work out every specific detail (like SFM) for some 90% of the scenes because the AI is handling it. This is huge and something I miss a lot from SFM.

-crowd path animation generation (I can have a crowd of people all walking different directions and the computer will figure out their paths automatically

-mapping (though it sounds like you can import things)

-integration of facial motion capture data (though maybe cinema4d can do this too)

 

I think you should have a rest youre not really geting things done faster by staying awake:/ It only thing it will achive is you geting sick D:.

WRONG I got the video in by deadline. However I'm not going to do more deadlines.

 

Sorry to hear, Ross. Hopefully, Source 2 (since there have been some interesting rumors about it) will be better to mod for, but you're likely to completely move over to UDK and never look back.

Yeah I think that latter option. Source 2 would need an option to read character motion from my brain for me to move back to it.

 

I haven't heard of black dawn, but so far I have some good volunteers helping me on UDK. I'll open up the scope of volunteers after more stuff is established. Just as important for this project is a solid organization system that will account for 80% or more volunteers disappearing randomly. I'm also going to be have a dedicated project manager or two, I can't be the one organizing everything for this project, it's too big.

 

"I haven't played Black Mesa yet" Holy sh*t! Christ, I didn't know you were THAT busy.

I've started playing it, since I wrote the post, but I'm not sure I will finish it. It's very well done, but I got to the tentacled monster and just didn't want to play that sequence again, it felt too much like work. I think I may have permanently ruined Half-Life for myself in doing Freeman's Mind. Top of my list now is Alan Wake and the Walking Dead games.

 

Yeah I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed the month of Freeman never happened though I'm glad you still plan on it sooner or later. Have fun (or sleep) on your break!

Well it's coming, I'm not animating any more projects besides the movie and the movie is going to be developing slowly, so that pretty much leaves just Freeman's Mind. I'm predicting at least 10 more FM episodes before I devote extra time to the movie.

[danielsangeo]

10 more FM episodes? Oh boy, I have my work cut out for me.

[PoiSonSonic]

Yeah SFM is a huge tradeoff of features, the single worst of which is having to bake all your animations into the same sequence per model. The overwhelming messages I get from using SFM are "do it right the first time" and "have all your assets done before you start working. If you don't do this, it can lead to a lot of misery.

 

I got one email from you that was just links to tutorial for motion builder, not even a body of the email. If you've sent others, I haven't gotten around to them yet.

 

As for cinema 4d, I'm not overly familiar with it, but stuff that comes to mind for UDK:

 

-NPC programming so that I can simply give instructions where the character to walk towards or be facing (like Hammer / face poser) and not have to work out every specific detail (like SFM) for some 90% of the scenes because the AI is handling it. This is huge and something I miss a lot from SFM.

-crowd path animation generation (I can have a crowd of people all walking different directions and the computer will figure out their paths automatically

-mapping (though it sounds like you can import things)

-integration of facial motion capture data (though maybe cinema4d can do this too)

 

Very interesting points! Cinema4d is just another 3d editor with the ability to render, like XSI or 3ds Max or Blender. For this instance a place where stuff comes together. So all in all its the most flexible you can get with these tools. More time consuming, less if you get used to it. Next thing - more assets in general. There are tons of premade anim sequences or models(props).

 

One makes everything in one of those and exports to UDK or SDK. Common knowledge for fellow forum readers ^^. From this point of view using a game engine as a render machine has more downs then ups. Due to limitations. BUT(!) Even if you stick with games, consider getting finger dirty and tap into "how everything made" zone, so you'd be able to combine RAW-level assets into UDK-level assets you desire.

 

Hope nobody feels anybody was offended, and this message is understandable ^_^ cheers.

 

p.s. E-mails. I'm fine, just expected a "thanks" in return.